In the kitchen, she casts an eye over her stash of unappealing eats and drinks. She’s starving, but that will have to wait. Eating in front of a stranger can feel undignified, especially if one is hungry: Katya tends to wolf her food. After the “grubby Grubbs” remark, she won’t give him another opportunity to scoff. She rather wishes Reuben had thought to include some wine in his purchases. Vodka, even. She fetches two glasses and carries them outside, along with the bottle of water from the fridge. Impeccably sober drinks.
Mr Brand’s sitting on the edge of the terrace, one leg folded across the other in his cream trousers. It’s hard to laugh at cold water, but he finds a way: “My, how Spartan,” he says. “That’s no good, no good at all. Look in my jacket, won’t you? Inside pocket, on the right.”
The jacket, cream fabric, is draped over the terrace wall. She picks it up, feeling the warmth of the fading day in its cloth. The lining is even warmer: body heat. He must have put it on and taken it off again while she was in the shower. So she’s not the only one fussing over her outfit. She fleetingly wants to wrap the coat around her shoulders and push her arms into the too-big sleeves, they are so silky and warm.
Thinking of Alma, who never wears a piece of clothing without pockets to hide her hands, Katya runs her fingers over the lining. There are numerous slits and pockets of different sizes. Some of them contain objects: business cards … handkerchief … pen … she must guess what he wants her to find. But then her fingers touch a cool weight and she knows what it is before she pulls it out. A stainless-steel hip flask. Nice thing, heavy, elegant lines. She weighs it in her hand. Full, she would say. She tosses it across the space to him.
“Careful with that,” he says, catching it easily. “Antique. Or so I’m told.”
Already Mr Brand is screwing off the cap and putting the bottle to his lips. A greedy action. He watches her with slitted eyes over the silver flank of the bottle, like a jealous baby suckling. She’s pleased when he pulls it away and his bullfrog throat relaxes, showing off his strong jaw to better effect. He’s a handsome man, when the angles are right.
“Your father liked a drop,” he says.
“Hm.” What, were they drinking buddies, too?
“Not good with the booze, was he, your dad?”
She doesn’t want to talk about her father. She shrugs.
“Go on,” he says, “have a hit.” He holds the flask out to her.
But this is too much. She is not ready to apply her lips to the spout he’s just sucked on. She pours a measure into one of the tumblers. She makes sure it’s a good tot, though, two fingers – his not hers. Whisky. She lifts it to her nose and drinks in the scent. She’s no expert in these things, but this smells awfully expensive. If that gold signet ring he wears on his finger could be turned into vapour and sniffed, then this is what it would smell like.
“You know, it will be magnificent,” he says. “This place.”
“Yes, it’s beautiful,” she says lightly, looking out at the perfect sea, the green profusion of the vlei.
But his attention is focused in the other direction, down onto the muddy grounds of Nineveh. She goes towards him and he stands at the same time, so they almost collide, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
He points. “You don’t see the full effect, obviously. The greenery will be established, it’ll be lush. Magnificent in summer. And the guardhouse will be replaced by something more permanent. All of this area, here: parking.” He holds his right hand out and shifts it a little to the left, a little to the right, tweaking and moulding space. As he talks, gesturing with his right hand, his left hand reaches out and pats her gently on the shoulder for emphasis. “Do you see?”
She’s not really listening. She’s watching Mr Brand sidelong. He is a physically easy man. In his body. Towards her body. He touches her without thinking, persuading her into his vision with taps and nudges. Shoulder, knee, and once – it burns – her cheek. She does not withdraw from it. He has the unthinking generosity of touch of someone who lives in the body, and who likes to be touched in turn. It’s hard not to feel warmed – physically warmed, as if each time his big hand touches her skin or her clothes it passes on some of his heat, until the whole side of her body facing him is glowing, ear to ankle. Now he’s leaning out to show her something on the far border of the property, gripping her shoulder for balance.
She tries to take in what he’s saying. He’s using more extravagant language now. He says he wants to expand. There are plots across the road that belong to him, too, that will become more luxury estates, perhaps a shopping centre. There will be nature trails through the wetlands, beach access. And not forgetting the poor: he talks of the people in the informal settlements, how they can be put to work, and how in turn they can be provided with better homes, roads, electricity. He speaks without enormous animation, but rather in a tone of calm surety. She’d like him to carry on talking for a long time, as she replenishes herself on his frequent touches, the scent of warm gold coming through the fabric of his shirt. It is all she can do not to lean in and press her cheek to his solid breadth. He is so confident: his gestures have the power to raise palaces, cities. Beneath his hand, the model town comes to life. She wants to be touched the way he touches the landscape: tenderly, boldly, burnishing her into something better than she actually is.
She realises that he’s stopped talking, is looking at her for a response. It takes her a moment to pull back from the golden vistas.
“You see what I mean,” he says. “You see how big this is, how big it could be.”
There is a chill patch on her shoulder, where his hand had weighed. She swigs her whisky, he takes another shot from the hip flask. If he asked her, What do you think about all this, really?, she would have to answer in her father’s voice. She would have to say: Bullshit, Mister.
But her father is not here. And she remembers the architect’s model in the office, perfect under its yellow light. If there is such a golden city being built, she wants to be one of the calm little figures on the battlements, looking out – not out in the big, cold world, staring in.
She shivers. Mr Brand is reaching for his coat. The far reaches of Nineveh have turned chilly and blue. Down there, Soldier and Pascal pace the perimeter. Man and dog look slow, damp and shuffling, profoundly unsatisfied. Pascal guards this place but does not inhabit it; and neither does she.
He claps his hands. “So. What’s your verdict?”
“Sorry?”
“How long is this all going to take? When can you wrap it up? It’s been a year … We need to move you out and the tenants in, pronto.”
She swallows down the last of her drink. She was just starting to like the place. “Well. Just as soon as we sort this gogga problem out.”
“When? How many days? How bad is it? Are they going to swarm again? I can’t say I see any of these famous bugs …”
“You’ll get my report,” she says. “Shortly.”
“Give me a clue.”
Thinking hard, she pours herself some more whisky. “You’ll see all the details in my report.”
He’s staring at her, drumming his thick fingers on the balcony rail. Then he barks like a dog: his laugh, she has to remind herself. “Grubbs!” He chortles to himself, suddenly decisive. “Fine. Come by … let’s say Sunday? You can tell me what it’ll take to get us a clean bill of health, a no-bug certificate or whatever, and then we can get on with things around here.”
She puts her glass down and wipes her palm in readiness for a businesslike handshake. Instead, he grips her arms above the elbows and swivels her body slightly, to the left, to the right, like she’s a loose bolt that needs adjusting. “Sort it out, would you? Would you do that for me? Not like your dad, eh?” Then he runs the flat of his hand over the top of her head.
She watches him as he makes his way down the steps, across the open ground and to the gate. He confers briefly with Pascal at the guardhouse. He’s patting Soldier on the head, with the same hand that j
ust touched her hair. The dog genuflects, bowing down on his forepaws. The gates open. There’s some big, pale, luxury car out there. It slides away, almost silent in the fading light. Pascal pulls closed the gates, giving her the briefest glance over his shoulder.
Why did he come, Mr Brand? It couldn’t have been just to check up on her. Maybe he’s a lonely man. Maybe his wife is tired of listening to his grand plans. Or he just wanted to knock a few golf balls into the gloom. The club he’s left behind is a rusty old thing. She picks it up and strokes an imaginary ball out towards the horizon. Hole in one.
It is a perfect evening, no wind, the sand on the beach clean and trackless as if pressed by giant hotel staff. The sun is sinking, quite lovely as it glances metallic off the vlei and starts to polish the sea.
She can hear, rising now on the cool evening air, the sounds of people. The noises are faint but distinct, and although she cannot see from her vantage point where they are coming from, she can tell from the quality of the sounds that it is a township or an informal settlement. A radio, a crying child, companionable shouting – not a mix you’d find in the suburbs. She’s surprised; she hadn’t noticed anything like that close by. This place is not so exclusive, then. You can shut out a lot, but not the floating sounds of human life. When she goes to the edge of the terrace, she can see it clearly: a group of maybe thirty shacks standing close together in the bush, balanced precariously between the vlei and the road. Are these the people that Mr Brand plans to set to work on his grand new projects?
She closes her eyes and listens. A densely patterned chorus of frogsong is building beneath the human sounds. The waves are a distant bassline. Two dogs start barking at each other, one near and one distant. The near one has a gruff dark-chocolate sound to it; she thinks it might be Soldier. The other sounds like a young dog, filled with the happy excitement of puppydom, and they seem to be tossing the sound back and forth not in hostility but in playful communication. Then the guard’s bicycle wheels sizzle past, the familiar ting ting bell, and there it is: a fragile symphony.
When she opens her eyes, the daylight is gone. The lamps on their ornate poles have turned on automatically, and cast handfuls of light here and there on the muddy grounds of Nineveh. You’d have to wade right out into the vlei to get the country effect of purple sky and bright stars. Out beyond the wall, the bush is dark, and beyond that the beach glimmers ghostly, completely empty now.
She can feel the building growing cool towards her, becoming a stranger again. It doesn’t belong to her. No more than she belongs to Mr Brand, despite that warm hand on her arm. She will see him again on Sunday, she will give him her empty report and he will take back the keys of the city. She had hoped for more time.
Get it together, kiddo. Scowling, she stamps back inside, briefly startled by a motion-activated light switching on over the front door. She leafs fretfully through her notebook, but there’s nothing more to say. Her usual note-making procedure is to state the problem and propose a strategy: plan of action, schedule, goals. Then make out a list of tools and equipment. Conclude with outcomes and resolution. There will be a discrete and obvious mission: borer beetles to be persuaded to change their ways, snakes to divert from their crimes, feral cats to talk down, spiders to cajole. Even if the situation is overwhelming – a plague of locusts – at least it’s clear what’s wrong. But here, the pest is elusive, its goals obscure. She can’t even give it a precise name. “A species of metallic longhorn” indeed. That’s about as helpful as “gogga”.
In the kitchen, she fills the place with her own noise, shoving chairs aside, grabbing at forks and knives: things to hold on to, tools to use. Food! That was something of Mr Brand’s she could incorporate, that could not be taken away.
The bully beef sits on the shelf in its round-cornered, perfectly designed cans, which haven’t changed since, oh, at least since Len’s boyhood. The contents, according to the label, are largely filler and very little meat. This stuff might not even offend Toby’s vegetarian sensibilities, despite the tubby, oddly pink bull in the picture. As she would remark to irritate him if he were here.
It all comes back to her in a wave: the way the loose label comes off the shiny, scored tin, the flat key that you have to insert just so – the first time she fumbles it, sticking it in the wrong way round – and its satisfying winding action. The tin hinges back to show a plug of white fat. She takes a teaspoon from the drawer and spoons off the tallow to expose the pink flesh beneath. It gives off a rich, slightly metallic odour. The processed meat looks toxic, fluorescent almost, but she can’t resist. She spoons out a chunk and puts it in her mouth. Salty, fatty, pungent …
A dim afternoon. A kitchen table, dirty yellow light coming through the window, and the feel of a tacky plastic tablecloth under her arms. The hard edges of a spoon in her mouth. Fingers, smelling of soap, wiping the grease off her lips. She remembers: their mother would spit on a tissue and clean the girls’ faces with it, like an animal grooming her young. For a while, Katya and Alma must have shared that smell: the musk of their mother’s mouth, underlying the waxy sweetness of lipstick.
Katya swallows quickly and pushes the sprung-open can away from her. Pain strokes her fingertip. She remembers now, the peril of those cans. The sharp edges surrounding the meat.
“God knows what they put in this shit,” she says into the silence. Then she pulls some paper from the toilet roll and presses it to the finger. Red blossoms through the tissue. She squeezes, focusing on the pain.
“That stuff will kill you,” she says again, addressing her imaginary Toby, who is, for once, listening attentively to her advice. “Close your mouth,” she tells him.
She puts the rest of the food away in the fridge and in the cupboard, one of those numerous cupboards that are so cunningly concealed, with doors that snick closed so trimly that she’s not sure she’ll ever find them again. She sips the red, fizzy drink. It’s warm, and so excruciatingly sweet it’s like drinking flavoured lip-gloss. She tips the bottle immediately down the sink, the stuff hissing and frothing and giving off a pungent raspberry whiff, wondering, as she does, if this is the first organic substance to foul up these drains. If it is even organic. As she runs the taps to clear the sink, she imagines the course the water is taking, down the pipes laced into the walls of the flat, down two storeys and into the drains; flowing ultimately, perhaps, into the water of the swamp that lies beyond the walls.
8. SCRITCH, SCRATCH
Every hour through the night, it seems, Reuben does his circuit. She can trace his movement by the squeaky bicycle wheel, and she pictures the wavering lamp see-sawing around the perimeter, then across the middle, and across it again. There’s something ritualistic, pentacle-like, about the motion. The sound makes her feel more alone than before. It’s as if the guard is inscribing a juju shape into the ground, a spell to keep her out.
The truth is, she doesn’t want to go home. She wants more of that grand entitled feeling she had up on the terrace, with Mr Brand’s one arm around her shoulders and the other raised in invitation, urging her on through some portal into the glorious prospect. She wants to go there, she wants to buy that ticket. But her only currency is the usual: bugs and beetles. And she can’t seem to lay her hands on enough of those in Nineveh.
Perhaps the force of her desire pricks something into life. She becomes aware that the bicycle has been joined in counterpoint by another sound, closer. A tapping. Then a scraping. She sits up and listens; she switches on the bedside light. The sound is faint, and moving. She walks from room to room, cocking her head. Human hearing – tragic. She feels like a pigeon, trying to use its own weakest sense, turning its head this way and that to pursue an elusive fragment of sight. Is it in the floor? The walls? Scritch, scratch. She runs through her mental archive of pestilential noises. Something with claws? With a rapping beak? It sounds larger than an insect, certainly, but noises can be misleading. Now another element: a repetitive clucking. A bird’s cry, a creaking in the masonry? B
ut it seems too rhythmic, too clear, too regular: it’s electronic almost, not an organic sound. Not unlike the ticking of a large, resonant clock – except there isn’t one. She turns in a slow circle, echolocating. The more she hears it, the more unnatural and ominous it seems: the countdown to a movie bomb-blast. And then it stops. It is gone, tjoepstil, and although she stands for a good ten minutes, utterly still except for her eyes searching the room, it does not return.
She scrabbles in the innumerable drawers and finds a stash of glassware. Wine glass or tumbler – what’s best for eavesdropping? She chooses a juice glass and presses the base to her ear, the mouth to the wall. Louder, certainly.
No wall is ever silent; always there is a subdued orchestra of knocks and sighs and oceanic rushing. The hum of pipes, the creaks of bricks and mortar settling. Or unsettling: such sounds are the minute harbingers of future destruction, the first tiny tremors of a very, very slow collapse that will end, decades or centuries from now, in a pile of rubble.
She can’t tell if the clicking noise is loudest in the walls, the floor, or higher up. After some experimentation with combinations of furniture, she takes a high-back chair from the kitchen and puts it on the bed, and then climbs up and stands wobbling with one palm pressed against the ceiling, the glass in the other hand and her ear to the glass, wedging herself thus in a teetering tower between floor and mattress. What she hears is the sea.
Nineveh Page 9
